Colorado takes new shot to curb harmful ‘conversion therapy’ abuse

In the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that curtailed states’ ability to prohibit so-called “conversion therapy” outright, Colorado lawmakers are advancing a bill to deter the practice through civil liability rather than direct bans.

The proposal, House Bill 26-1322, would allow people who say they were subjected to conversion therapy to sue licensed mental health providers, as well as those who employ or supervise them, with no statute of limitations, according to the bill’s text. Lawmakers say that change reflects the reality that many survivors do not come forward until years, sometimes decades, after the harm.

The bill is both a response to and a test of the Supreme Court’s March 31 Chiles v. Salazar ruling, which found that talk therapy is protected speech under the First Amendment. As previously reported by The Advocate, the decision did not question the medical consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful. Instead, it drew a constitutional boundary around what the government can regulate: not the practice’s outcomes, but the words used in a therapeutic setting.

Related: Kids can be subjected to harmful 'conversion therapy,’ U.S. Supreme Court rules

Related: Appeals court denies attempt to block Colorado’s conversion therapy ban

That distinction has forced states like Colorado to rethink how to intervene.

Rather than banning conversion therapy directly, the bill treats it as professional misconduct with consequences that unfold in civil court. The aim, its sponsors say, is to make offering the practice legally and financially risky enough to prompt providers to abandon it.

State Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democrat sponsoring the bill, has called the action a necessary adaptation to a shifting legal landscape, one that still leaves LGBTQ+ people, especially young people, vulnerable, according to Sentinel Colorado. The measure applies only to licensed mental health professionals, leaving clergy and most religious counselors outside its reach.

One survivor, now 60, described carrying the effects of conversion therapy for decades, telling lawmakers they spent years trying to prove they were “worthy,” according to Sentinel Colorado.

Related: The fight to eradicate dangerous ‘conversion therapy’ isn’t over, alarming new report warns

Related: Almost 200 members of Congress call on the Supreme Court to uphold bans on conversion therapy

Advocates say those experiences remain widespread. A 2024 survey by The Trevor Project found more than one in 10 LGBTQ+ young people in Colorado reported being subjected to or threatened with conversion therapy in the past year.

“Unfortunately, we very much know that conversion therapy is alive and well,” Casey Pick, the Trevor Project’s senior director of law and policy, told Sentinel Colorado.

Legal advocates have emphasized that the Supreme Court’s ruling was narrower than it may appear. Legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, Shannon Minter, previously told The Advocate that the decision “was not endorsing conversion therapy,” but agreed that it complicates how states can regulate conversion therapy.